THE TIERRA CALIENTE 87 



the giant chain of the Andes spreads out, as it enters Mexico, 

 into a vast sheet of table-land, which maintains an elevation of 

 from 6000 to 9000 feet for the distance of 200 leagues, until it 

 gradually declines in the higher latitudes of the north, or de- 

 scends in successive stages to the sea-borde of the Atlantic. 

 To this remarkable geological formation the land, though 

 warmed during part of the year by the rays of a vertical sun, 

 owes that astonishing variety of climate and productions which 

 would make it the envy of the earth, if its wretched inhabitants, 

 the victims of ignorance, superstition, and anarchy, did not 

 brutally trample on the gifts of Nature, and render Mexico the 

 scoff and by-word of the civilised world. 



All along the Mexican gulf stretches a broad zone of lowlands, 

 called the iierra calieute, or hot region, which has the usual high 

 temperature of the tropics. Parched and sandy plains, dotted with 

 mimosas and prickly opuntias, are intermingled with savannahs, 

 overshadowed by groves of palms and woodlands of exuberant 

 fertility, and glowing with all the splendour of equinoctial vege- 

 tation. The branches of the stately forest trees are festooned 

 with clustering vines of the dark purple grape, convolvuli, and 

 other flowering parasites of the most brilliant dyes. The under- 

 growth of prickly aloe, matted with wild rose and honeysuckle, 

 makes in many places an almost impervious 

 thicket. In this wilderness of sweet-smelling 

 buds and blossoms flutter birds of the parrot 

 tribe, and clouds of butterflies, whose colours, 

 nowhere so gorgeous as here, rival those of the 

 vegetable world ; while birds of exquisite sofig, 

 — the scarlet cardinal, and the mocking-bird that 

 comprehends in his own notes the whole music 

 of a forest, — fill the air with melody. 



But, like the genius of evil, the malaria en- 

 gendered by the decomposition of rank vegetable substances 

 in the hot and humid soil, poisons these enchanting retreats, and 

 from the spring to the autumnal equinox renders them dan- 

 gerous or fatal to man. 



Hastening to escape from its influence, the traveller, after 

 passing some twenty leagues across the dreaded region of the 

 yellow-fever, finds himself rising into a piu'er atmosphere. His 

 limbs recover their elasticity. He breathes more freely, for his 



G 4 



